That’s right: just five states, collectively containing about 2 percent of the American population, have statistically significant pluralities of adults identifying themselves as Republicans. These are the “Mormon Belt” states of Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, plus Nebraska, plus Alaska. By contrast, 35 states are plurality Democratic, and 10 states are too close to call.

Silver does offer some caveats, including this one:

[P]erhaps most importantly is a point that both Michael Barone and I have raised at various times: one consequence of the Democratic coalition being larger, particularly as it tends to include a miscellany of groups that don’t always see eye-to-eye with one another (African-Americans, Hispanics, coastal liberals, union workers, young voters, etc.), is that it is more difficult to harness the entirety of that coalition in national elections. A Democratic presidential candidate from the North might have trouble appealing to voters in the South. A candidate from the South might have trouble appealing to voters in the North and West. . . .

Still, for things like gubernatorial elections and elections to the Congress, the Democrats’ upside is very high, particularly if the party is smart enough to tolerate and accommodate a diversity of opinions within its umbrella.

There’s a reason for Romney – and Mormonism, in its religious deification of America, is the natural theological basis for a theoconservative movement that sees an American empire as destiny. I hope Republicanism doesn’t go that route. But it may be too far gone to turn back now.

Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska, Nebraska, Kansas, and Alabama, and the last two are barely red. Total combined electoral votes: 35. The news isn’t quite as dismal as it seems — Texas is technically a blue state by this measure, even though it’s reliably red at election time — but eyeball the map . . . and note how many southern states are suddenly leaning Democratic.

These are the numbers that make yesterday’s flexing of muscle by Rush Limbaugh over Georgia congressman Phil Gingery not merely ridiculous but actively dangerous. When Republicans line up behind Rush Limbaugh in this way, they are dividing the country 80-20 against themselves. Our supreme priority now has to be to reinvent ourselves as a pragmatic, inclusive, modern party of free enterprise and limited government. We have to relearn how to talk to moderates, independent, younger voters, educated voters, women – it’s a long list.

Let’s keep on telling ourselves that Michael Steele shouldn’t be allowed to head the RNC because he dared to affiliate himself with Christine Todd Whitman and John Danforth. Let’s chastise the guy who said that the GOP needs to elect more moderates. Let’s just fire up the base (no matter how small it is), kick out anyone who happens to disagree with it on any minute point of orthodoxy, and hope that everything turns out alright. . . .

I know that to the relentlessly principled, it might feel fantastic to sit around, chattering to ourselves about how wonderfully right we are on all of the issues. But in the meantime, we have no influence on actual policymaking.

There is an obvious solution to this dilemma: simple re-branding. Speaking to issues that Americans really care about right now. Discarding identity politics. Stop applying rigid litmus tests to Republican Party membership. Dropping the identity politic of the culture war. Re-embracing pragmatism with a solid center-right agenda — without being afraid of the ‘center’ part.

I would be careful about declaring the Republicans dead. The same kind of talk was rampant after the 1964 election in which Barry Goldwater was soundly defeated in the presidential election, the Democrats increased their numbers dramatically in governornship and state legislative seats, and both houses of Congress were overwhelmingly controlled by the Democrats. It did not last long. I am not saying the future will be the same, only that political fortunes can swing dramatically in American politics.

Let’s hope the Republicans continue to live by their divisive and ideologically bankrupt ways for at least 16 more years — it will take that long to undue the economic, social and consitutional harm done to the US by the Bush II and Reagan years.

One factor to consider, which is not factored in here, is that in most states, the majority — or a plurality — of voters are “unaffiliated” and don’t register as a member of either party. To say (for example) that Alaska is “solidly Republican,” or Hawai’i is “solidly Democratic,” isn’t an entirely fair assessment, if less than a majority of voters in either state have even affiliated with one party or the other.

If the results of the recent election for Republican party chair of Maricopa County, Arizona (metro Phoenix) are any indication, the Republican operatives at a local level — who in this case rejected a more moderate candidate endorsed by the remaining three (out of eight) Republican U.S. House members (in 2006 the Republicans held six of the eight AZ congressional seats) in favor of an extremist, anti-immigrant chair who stood idly by as Democratic voter registration surged — are just not getting the message.

The GOP committed suicide under Bush. It is dead and soon will be gone.

Real fiscally responsible, small government conservatives have left the GOP in droves, many of us have moved to the Libertarian Party. Leaving only the Christian Fundamentalist, Big Government, Anti-Freedom, Anti-Choice, War-Mongers in the GOP, heck they destroyed it, they can have what is left!

Time for the US and the News to start focusing on their logical replacement, America’s 3rd largest party; The Libertarian Party!

Is it any surprise that the GOP is losing support? Despite the Obama groundswell, Republican leaders cling to the failed and, by all logic, discredited agenda of Grover Nordquist, et Cie: starve the beast, screw the poor. Obama worries that a too-hasty switch to digital TV will leave 6.5 million Americans in the dark, while Republicans fret about their corporate patrons’ cable networks. The GOP champions itself as a friend of the downtrodden. You have to get Republicans credit for selling that notion, which is of the biggest and most hypocritical lies in modern American political history. Now we see the party’s new agenda: ensure that the Obama administration fails, so they can prove his movement “wrong.” It’s time for everyone to embrace new ideas, not tax cuts for the wealthy, not corporate welfare, not business as usual. Sadly, the national embrace of the Obama vision is lost on the GOP and its frightened cadre on Capitol Hill, who line up behind their leaders and docilely vote not their conscience, but to preserve their party standing. What craven, small men and women they are.

Dear Alex, No, it won’t do to slap a bluish label on the GOP bottle and expect people to buy it. Republicans had 4 years of control of all three branches (and a lot of help from the 4th, the press). They applied their vaunted ideals, and trashed the country. Tantrums about tax cuts don’t work anymore, because we’ve seen the real-world results of overcutting taxes. Democrats were warning about GOP policies and were proven largely right. Monolithic conservatism does not work.

Wake up call: The fiscally conservative, old white males in suits are now a minority everywhere in the US but congress, and they will soon be on the way out ther, too, as our representatives slowly reflect the larger population.

The level of desperation of the GOP can be seen the hail mary pass to Palin on2008; they had to leave the contiguous 48 states to find a candidate with the ideas of a crotchey, old white male but the face and body of a beauty queen.

That party needs a sea change. They might be for soemthing besides deficits and waterboarding for a start (thank, btw, to Bush and Cheney for doing more than any democrat ever could to destroy the GOP and usher in change).

Perhaps the GOP could, gasp, be the party of immigrant, business, latinos, the military, etc. How to get there? A wink and “you betcha” should do it.

Let’s also be aware that this is the early honeymoon period after a historic change election, so these numbers may be the high-water mark (or low, depending) of identification with the winning party, esp. if things don’t turn out as hoped.

The thing I cant understand is how the Republicans who are currently serving still act like their party is the one in control. Not a single House Republican voting for the stimulus? Were they all passed our on Nov 4 and Jan. 20? We said we wanted something different. The stimulus is different. I cant understand how they think this will help their party….

This data is encouraging, but lest anyone think it reflects some simple and transparent truth, just consider Oklahoma. The Sooner State was one of the few to become even redder in the 2008 election than it was in 2004; what could possibly have shifted it to anything like “leaning Democratic” less than three months later?

It’s always encouraging when large numbers of people are willing to rethink their political affiliations. And there are a dozen different ways in which Republicans are in trouble, often for very good reasons, with it being hard to see how ongoing rightist extremism does them any long term good.
Commenters #1 and #3 make excellent points, while I actually hope, in disagreement with the second comment, that Republicans find a more moderate and reasonable tone to use to contrast themselves with Democrats in power, not because I want to vote Republican or ever will, but because our politics as a whole would benefit from that more serious debate.

Interesting that those red, and red-leaning states, are what might be called the “Brain-Drain States”–akin to the third-world countries that suffer loss of their best and brightest as emigrants to more prosperous countries. Anyone born with talent, intelligence and ambition to make something of his/her life leaves these barren states as soon as they are able. Sadly, this leaves behind a breeding pool of…. well, Republican voters.

I was a staunch Republican until it finally got through my thick head that I was not wanted in the Republican party because I am not a Christian. When McCain (who I caucused for) picked Sarah Palin I finally got it.

The Republican party is offically and categorically the party of woo and superstition. No reason allowed.

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The Thread is an in-depth look at how the major news events and controversies of the day are being viewed and debated across the online spectrum. Compiled by Peter Catapano, an editor in The Times’s Opinion section, the Thread is published every Saturday in response to breaking news.